The death of the DREAM Act is a shame. Although the bill's requirements had become stricter in recent weeks, the bill, which would have given a path to citizenship to undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children who went to college or served in the military, would have helped a large number of people. It also would have helped the country: It would have reduced the deficit, offered more recruits for the military at a time when the U.S. is at war, and provided the economy with more high skilled workers.
It's too bad that enough Democrats voted to block the bill that the few Republicans who crossed the aisle didn't make enough of a difference. DREAM has had a long life, and we'll see some version of it again in the future, because the problem won't go away. As long as illegal immigration remains a problem--a problem that can't be solved without shifting to a system that takes into account the realities of the labor market--we will have more undocumented immigrants. People will come here seeking a better life, and they will raise their children here who will, be American in almost every conceivable sense.
Despite the prolonged efforts of Senator John McCain and most of the Republican Party, the military's ban on allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly is on its way to the trash heap of history, with only a single majority vote left to go. That doesn't mean DADT ends immediately--the military will be implementing repeal on its own timetable. It's not clear how long that will take--two years after Harry Truman's executive order the U.S. entered the Korean War with segregated units--but it will happen.
Prior to the cloture vote taking place, McCain invoked Marine Commandant Gen. James Amos' misguided remarks that repealing the policy would lead to deaths on the battlefield. "We've got Marines at Walter Reed with no legs," McCain said, apparently unaware that servicemembers forced to hide their sexual orientation also die and lose limbs in battle, and that those servicemembers have partners and families whose loss goes unacknowledged. IEDs, it turns out, do not demand to know your sexual orientation before they explode.
The imminent demise of DADT was the result of a massive collective effort on the part of tireless activists and servicemembers, the military leadership, the president, and congressional Democrats. It's safe to say that despite its unpopularity, as of last week one of the last vestiges of flagrant, legalized discrimination in American society stood a good chance of surviving into the second decade of the 21st Century. For the first time in years, liberals were happy to hear sentences including the words "Senator Joe Lieberman." Those liberals still angry about the public option will have to reconcile their feelings with the fact that DADT repeal might not have been possible without him.
More Republicans voted for repeal than expected, but this vote can and should be remembered as a moment when the Democratic Party lived up to its finest traditions as the party of tolerance and the Republican Party was willing to invoke its procedural rights in the name of denying fundamental rights to others. The DREAM Act and DADT repeal votes were about more than just policy--they were mission statements for what each party stands for.
